Despite all the dismal downbeat sentiment signals from various 'soft' data, it appears the American consumer is not deterred from spend, spend, spend as US Retail Sales surged 0.6% MoM in June (up from the 0.9% MoM plunge in May and better than the +0.1% MoM expected), driving sales up 3.9% YoY...
 

Source: Bloomberg
 

Under the hood, Motor Vehicles and Auto Parts sales surged in June (yes this is AFTER the tariffs went into place and NOT due to any front-running)...
 

Source: Bloomberg
 

The Control Group - which feeds directly into GDP - also surged 0.5% MoM in June, leaving sales up 4.0% YoY...
 

Source: Bloomberg
 

Of course, this data is all nominal, so we make a rough and ready approximate to 'real' spending by reducing the sales by CPI and voila, 'Real' Retail Sales have risen YoY for the last 9 months...
 

Source: Bloomberg
 

So are spending outlooks from all those 'soft' survey just a load of partisan bullshit?

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